Amara snapped, “What? That’s not a plan!”
“It’s all I have,” Pirellus said. “Countess, I hope to the furies you’re clever as well as brave. If you don’t find some way to get them off of us, we’re dead, right here, right now.” And with that, he nodded to Amara and stepped toward the melee at the gate. He paused, halfway there, to pick up a long, heavy length of wood that had been one of the drawing traces of a cart crushed by falling debris. He turned crisply and handed it to Bernard as the dazed Steadholder stood up.
“What do you want me to do?” Bernard said.
“Follow me,” Pirellus said. “Keep any strays off my back. Stay out of my way.” Then he turned and walked into the struggle at the gate. With a few harsh, barked phrases, he stepped up between the young legionares and drew his sword. Within seconds, three Marat warriors lay bleeding on the ground, and their advance halted.
Pirellus snarled orders at the young legionares, and after a frantic half-moment they moved, breaking into a pair of elementsand heading up the stone stairs to the battlements, slopping buckets of water ahead of them to cool the heated stones as they went.
Pirellus stood in the gates alone. Amara saw him set a grim, polite little smile onto his lips. He bowed to the Marat standing just beyond the gate and then with the fingers of one hand beckoned them forward.
Bernard gripped the heavy wooden pole and swallowed, looking back at Amara. His eyes were a little wide, and he drew in an unsteady breath, but he turned back to the gate and stood perhaps ten feet behind Pirellus, standing steady.
Amara felt a scream of frustration well up in her, even as the Marat again began to come through the gate, by ones and twos. The Parcian swordsman met them, more than a match, and first one, then another, then another of the barbarians fell to the dark sword. But even Pirellus was not untouchable. A pair of warriors came through together, facing him. Pirellus neatly parried a thrusting spear and spun to thrust toward the other warrior—and suddenly hesitated, faced with a half-naked young Marat woman.
He did not pause for so long as the space of a breath before he lunged forward, driving the dark sword between her breasts, but that hesitation cost him. The Marat beside him swept the butt end of the spear at his leg, striking the side of his knee with a crunch of impact, and if Bernard had not stepped forward to drive the young warrior to the earth with an overhand sweep of the thick wooden pole, Pirellus might have been killed.
Instead, the warrior grimaced, moving with no more than a slight limp, and continued what Amara knew would ultimately be a hopeless, if heroic defense of the gates.
Harger came to her side, his eyes sunken, worried, as they traveled up to the walls, and Amara looked to see the legionares there engaging the enemy, heard the screams of the warbirds and of their Marat masters.
“Lady,” Harger growled. “What do we do?”
Amara wanted to scream at the man out of sheer frustration and fear. Even as she watched, a young legionare fell from the wall, screaming and clutching at his face, blood pouring from his fingers. He fell no more than a few feet away. Bernard barely dodged a suddenly thrust spear as he swept another Marat from Pirellus’s flank.
How was she to know what to do? She wasn’t a military commander. The abrupt destruction of Garrison’s Knights had crippled their defenses, she knew. How was she to know how to overcome that loss?
Amara drew in a sudden breath. She wasn’t.
She sheathed her sword and seized Harger’s sleeve. “Healer. Take me to Count Gram.”
He did so at once, leading her to the center of the fortress, where a pair of senior legionares stood guard before the door of a heavy, practical structure of brick. Amara swept past them and into a building, up a flight of stairs, and into the Count’s bedchamber.
Gram lay in his bed, his head to one side, his face grey, eyes sunken. There were flecks of some kind of white film on his lips, and his broad, capable hands lay limply on the sheets, looking frail, the skin as thin as parchment.
Amara looked at the man and swallowed. She knew that what she was about to do might kill him. She did it anyway. “Wake him up, Harger.”
Harger let out a shaking breath. “Lady. I can, but it could—”
“I know it could kill him, Healer,” Amara said. “But if the walls or the gate falls, he’ll be dead either way. We need him. The garrison needs him. I do not think that he would wish us to let them fall when he might be able to help.”
Harger looked at her for a moment and then shook his head. The old healer sagged for a moment, his face drawn. “No. I don’t suppose he would.”
“Get him moving,” Amara said, quietly. “I’ll get the guards to help carry him.”
She went downstairs to the two legionares there, returning with them to Gram’s bedchamber. She found Harger standing over the old Count, whose face was flushed with unnatural color. Gram dragged in a panting breath and opened his eyes, squinting at her. He grunted and said, “Harger says my Knights are gone. Just the green troops left.”
“Yes,” Amara said, her voice tight. “They’re on the walls. Pirellus is alive, but wounded, holding the gates alone. We need to get you out there—”
“No,” Gram said. “Don’t bother. Won’t do any good.”
“But, sir —”
“Fire,” Gram croaked.
“The enemy used the Knight’s firepots against them. Made them explode on the walls.”
Gram closed his eyes. “Are they all at the gates?”
“No,” Amara said. “They’re up on the walls again, too. Spread all along them.”
“Can’t be done,” Gram said, sighing. “Even if I wasn’t hurt. Even if we had more firepots. Can’t call up that much fire, that wide.”
“There’s got to be something you can do,” Amara said, dropping a hand onto his.
“Nothing,” Gram whispered. “Can’t burn something that wide. Not strong enough.”
Amara chewed on her lip. “What about another kind of crafting?”
Gram opened his eyes again. “What?”
“A firecrafting,” Amara said. “The Marat can’t counter it with anything.”
Gram looked from Amara to Harger, then back again. “Fear,” he said. “Fire.”
“I don’t know if they’re afraid of fire —”
“No,” Gram said, his expression weakly irritated. “Get fire. Get a torch. You.”
Amara blinked at him. “Me? But I’m no firecrafter.”
Gram waved a hand impatiently, cutting her off and fixing her with glittering eyes. “Can’t walk. Someone else has to carry. Are you afraid, girl?”
She nodded, tightly, once.
He cackled. “Honest. Good. Get a torch. And get ready to be brave. Braver than you’ve ever been. Maybe we can do something.” Gram broke off, coughing, the sound weak, his face twisting into a grimace of pain.
Amara traded a look with Harger, then nodded to one of the legionares. The man stepped out, returning with a torch a moment later.
“Here, girl,” Gram whispered, beckoning with one hand. “Bring it close.”